


Jesse and James[ison]

by friedchickenwhore



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:59:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7212526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friedchickenwhore/pseuds/friedchickenwhore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s called a crush, Jesse.”<br/>“I am a 35 year old man, Gabe, I do not…crush, on folks.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not-So-Crush

“It’s called a crush, Jesse.”

“I am a 35 year old man, Gabe, I do not…crush, on folks.”

“Well, you also don’t tend to lose your so-called ‘cool’ and become a fumbling mess around anyone but the Rat, so. I feel like this is an exception,” Reaper pushed away from the table, standing and snatching up both their quickly finished dinner dishes. “Now, go conquer your not-crush feelings, or something.”

So much for Gabriel’s help. Kicking back in his chair, McCree groaned out a few curses in Spanish as he pushed his hat over his eyes and held it against his face. On the one hand, he could listen to his old mentor. On the other hand, he could stay put and continue denying it all. After all, listening to Gabriel hadn’t ended up well in the past, and he doubted it would now.

What could he even do? Walk up to Junkrat, big ol’ smiles with a cheerful “Hey I think you’re the first man I’ve taken romantic interest in, which is weird for me especially because I can’t even find a reason that I like you at all that I can put into words, maybe go out with me some time,”? No. No, that wouldn’t do at all.

Now he considered other options. Zarya was good with these things, and if not, he could consult booth her _and_  Mei on how they got together and put together a way he could do that himself.

“Oi- you see my big friend draggin’ his ass past here, Jess? Giant cunt’s been gone an easy two hours after headin’ off for a piss, startin’ to think he’s fuckin’ with me.”

No, no, now wasn’t the time, maybe if he kept his hat down he could fake sleep-

“Reaper literally just walked out grumblin’ bout ya, pipsqueak, little late to fake it now.” Alright, so that’s out. Jesse lazily pushed his hat back up, not even having the audacity to look sheepish about being caught in the act.

“Kitchen, I think.”

“God- damn it, Hog, a whole two hours?” With that, Jamison is stomping past him and into the kitchen, and McCree is free to escape back to his section of the base.

Jesse outweighs the idea of retreating fully to his room, by instead taking the turn towards Reaper’s. Hates the bastard’s advice, and yet-

“What now?” Gabriel sounds exasperated already.

“Did you actually walk out and grouch about me to make a fool a’ me in front of Jamison?”

“You make a fool enough of yourself. It was just a bonus to do it aloud and help the process.” With that, Reaper is already attempting to close his door again.

“Hey- can you just. Keep your distance, you’re keepin’ me all-overish and it’s making things harder, and there’s noway nohow I can get a good word in if you’re towerin’ around all shadowy and the likes.” It hurts like a bitch to have his foot slammed in the door just to get his two cents in, but it seems to be worth is as Reaper pauses, nods, and then is finally allowed to close the door fully.

Jesse doesn’t know why, at 2:30 in the morning, that he’s drudging towards Hana’s door. It’s covered in signs that she’s found around, yield, no boys allowed, attack dog inside, and some Polaroids that she’s taken in the name of “aesthetic”. He always manages to find a laugh in the one of the both of them, his forefinger hooked in his own lip to pull it further out as she sticks her tongue out. It’s a stupid photo. He’s been begging her to let him keep it.

Having been in there without asking often enough, he takes initiative and just pushes the door open and slumps into the unoccupied bed, face lit up by the brightness of her computer screen flashing with gunshots and zombie’s heads being blown off.

When she’d ignored his entry for a decent five minutes, he stretched his leg out to gently close the door from his draped out position and made a whining noise deep in his chest. “C’mon, you’ve beat this game before, Hana,” He dragged out her name with the ideology of a child.

“And you’ve sat here quietly before. What’s the difference now?”

“Hana—“  He reached out to take hold of her arm, stopping her from directing the controller any further. She huffed and paused the game, dropping the controller on the table to move onto the edge of the bed.

“What’d you do.” Jesse has the effort and state of mind to pout at that, grumbling something about how he hadn’t _done_  anything. “Alright, what did you definitely not do at all, oh innocent being?”

Jesse buries his head against her stomach with a groan as she goes about playing with his hair. Honestly, she doesn’t know why she deals with him.  “New kid’s hot. Like, really…really, hot.”

“So are you coming to me with a crush or with sexual frustration?” Hana questioned, starting to pull back his hair to get it out of his face. She searched her side drawer for a hairband to tie it up, still keeping one hand in his hair.

“Fuck, both. Little…Nancy lookin nipper, jesus. Doesn’t act nothin’ like a Nancy, no, too tall for it, I just…” He punctuated the end of his sentence with another noise in his throat, both whiny and deep at once.

“Are you trying to call him a twink-“

“He’s not- what?”

“…forget it, so you’re attracted to him. Where does this crush part come in? You know, where you want to date him, not just fuck him.”

“Do you have all night?”


	2. Returned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kid thinks they’re great friends, or something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to get updates on this story, but don't have an ao3 account/don't want to log in? Just want cool overwatch fanart and fics at random?   
> Check out my tumblr!   
> http://libbubbles.tumblr.com/   
> I tend to post there more often, and I'm totally up for fic suggestions sent there!

Jesse McCree spends the next week avoiding any trace of Junkrat and his bodyguard, skirting out of conversations upon their entrance and finding himself skipping or delaying meals if the two are in the kitchen. Hana is trying to reintegrate him into the group dinners Winston’s been wanting to start having.

It’s during one of these [and one of Reaper and 76’s dreaded arguments, which is bound to leave them drinking it out, and no one wants to deal with _one_ of them drunk, let alone both] that Jamison takes the initiative to confront him.

He takes the seat next to McCree, left open in case Hana is to return from her game streaming sooner than expected. He doesn’t know how the kid manages to keep quiet since he’s never seen Junkrat at any level lower than screeching, but he’s only alerted to the change in seats when Jamison snatches his hat. Kid’s an idiot, Jesse has instinctively reached for his peacekeeper and has it trained on the Junker’s forehead before Jesse himself has even realized what happened.

He’s actually more tense realizing it’s Jamison, rather than someone there to harm him. Though he does holster his pistol again, swallowing back any jumble of words in a mix of languages that he’d thought up in the spur of the moment.

“ ‘Mazing response time, pipsqueak, ‘specially for an older bloke!”  With that, Jamison is ruffling his hair and plopping Jesse’s hat atop his own head.

Alright. Kid thinks they’re great friends, or something. Or maybe it’s an Australian thing to lack personal space? He wouldn’t know.

“Coulda gotten yourself shot there, partner.” Jesse’s trying to return back to eating, trying real hard. So far it’s not working, he’s not even gotten to try Winston’s new recipe for curry before Jamison is distracting him again.

“So, like, speakin’ of, how old are ya anyway?”

He has half a mind to stand up and abandon dinner right now. Thankfully, it seems to show, as Junkrat visibly backtracks. “Right, not meant to ask that of ladies or handsome blokes, right? Nearly forgot, ‘fraid.”

Jesse furrows a brow, but tries to get back to his meal. It’s good, and the moment of decency lasts a few seconds before Jamison’s antsiness is apparent once more.

“…’M thirty-five.” He finally releases the information between bites, awaiting the inevitable laughter as he eyes Junkrat’s friend and the doc across the table.

He waits a bit longer, notices Hog’s hand brushing back Angela’s hair.

The maniac giggling hasn’t come yet and he looks over at Jamison, finally, expecting at least a snicker or smug look, but instead finds Jamison apparently star struck.

“What? What’s so surprising about that?”

“I thought you were my age! I mean, seeing you move on the field, and, and like I said ya sure are a handsome bloke, if that’s not weird to go blurtin’, so I was expecting max that you were late twenties!”

“Flattery’s nice, kid, but it don’t end my crow’s feet. Thanks, though, really.” He pushes away from the table, really just hoping to retreat to his own bedroom to enjoy sweatpants and maybe another chapter in the book Mercy suggested to him a few weeks back. It’s not half bad, and it would help pass the time without annoying Hana. Not that he has any issue with annoying Hana for his entertainment, but her streaming and competing is different from him barging into her regular recording sessions. She needs to have full concentration, and he can respect that.

It takes him half a second to notice that, even if he keeps towards his bedroom, he has a shadow now. And that just won’t do. He pauses in the middle of the hall, takes a long breath to settle himself, and then turns on his heel. Junkrat looks surprised, whether it’s because he thought Jesse somehow missed his loud hobbling behind him, or if he expected McCree to just let him come along, he’ll never really know.

“Goin’ to follow me forever? You could stand to put some meat on those bones, go finish dinner.”  He nods his head back towards the dining hall, crossing his arms light over his chest in an effort to look at least somewhat intimidating.

And then Jamison sighs, and straightens out his legs to gain the height advantage.

Jesse supposes it’s meant to be intimidating.

Honestly, it’s just really attractive.

“C’mon, Hog’s doin’…somethin’, and I ain’t got the lingo to actually listen to Sixer and Edgelord burl with eachother in- whatever it is they break into. Let me hang out with you for a bit, would ya?” Jamison whines, actually _whines_ , and it’s terrible enough that Jesse slumps his shoulders in defeat, without even countering that it’s Spanish they’re speaking, it’s obvious that it’s Spanish. “Alright then! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this is fun, like uh- what are those called? Right, like a sleep over!”

“I hadn’t even said you could spend the _night_ , kid-“

“Please?” He croons the word, over exemplifying it by pressing the back of his hand to his own cheek. So, Jamison is trying to be a master in the art of getting what he wants. Jesse can relate, which can be affirmed with a simple question or two to Reaper about their Blackwatch days. Needless to say, Jesse’s quick ascension in ranks wasn’t all sharpshooting and a good temperament.

Nonetheless, he relents with a roll of his eyes, finishing the brisk walk to his room. “Just don’t go mussin’ up the place, would ya?”

In the end, Junkrat only stays around a good ten minutes, babbling on and _touching things_ before Hog apparently discovers his absence, and returns to get him. There’s minor apologies. Junkrat is complaining about how he didn’t break nothing, and honestly Jesse just smiles and puts it off.

It was a good night, actually. Jesse sleeps well on it.

 

 

The morning isn’t quite as decent, as he’s dragged out of bed far too early by Angela, who’s fully armored and slightly panicked, it seems.

“We have a breech in security.” Is what gets him moving, slipping on his normal wear. It takes a bit to push the stomach plate of his armor in, as usual, but he’s gotten used to it so that it’s quick enough. Deadeye is out of her holster and into his hand, and then he’s moving outside, glad he’d actually gotten his boots on as the chilling morning air meets him first.

“What do we have?” He gives a quick glance back at Mercy, who already has that beam of flowing light focused on McCree himself. How sweet.

“Overridden omnics. There was a small one that made it past and disarmed the system first, and now there’s- Winston’s claiming two battle focused on them right now.” She rushes with the last part, as though she just got the information. And now that he thinks about it, she probably did. She tends to have her earpiece in most times of the day, even outside of something like this, and Winston could easily be on the other end as he tries to go after the rogues.

He glances back at her as they move towards sounds of distress, incredulous. “Why am I the one for the job? Please tell me Pharah’s out here, much bigger blast radius-“

She cuts him off, gesturing for him to refocus on moving with her. “Everyone’s out here. McCree, they aren’t- they’re not Zenyatta equivalent. They’re-“ The pair reaches the edge of the physical wall, normally further outreached by the electric barrier by at least one hundred feet.

And Jesse is faced with at least one, if not two, twenty foot hunks of metal, heat, and power.


	3. Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to get updates on this story, but don't have an ao3 account/don't want to log in? Just want cool overwatch fanart and fics at random?   
> Check out my tumblr!   
> http://libbubbles.tumblr.com/   
> I tend to post there more often, and I'm totally up for fic suggestions sent there!

“Game plan?” Jesse’s fumbling to get his earpiece in that Angela’s tossed him, hoping Jack and Winston have at least some sort of control going on.

He tries to keep himself in the thing’s blind spot, tries to keep Angela behind him, knowing he can take a hit or two more than she can and still get out of here fine. The bot’s trying to keep them in its sights, and Jesse is glad he’s kept up at least some sort of cardio before the recall or he might’ve failed in his efforts to ensure the thing is confused and blind of where the next hit might come from.

The earpiece finally slips into place, only to fill him with Morrison’s barking orders. Well, alright then.

“Is McCree finally on, Angela?”

“Right here, boy scout- don’t see you nowhere, though, bit’a hypocrisy there, fella.” And he doesn’t, actually, see a majority of the team as he continues to circle the bot. Until he spies the second one, a bit too far off for him to make out the shapes around it specifically, but it’s enough.

Morrison is gruff as always with his responses. “Needed powerhouses for this one, Jess. Still light on your feet?”

He laughs, snagging Angela’s hand and pulling her to his chest as he slides under a large foot that would have cleared both their heads right off if he hadn’t.

“I’d say so,” He mumbles into the piece, hurriedly rolling to his feet again. He took a quick moment to glance around for a plan, since, fairly enough, 76 seems too busy with the heavier omnic further off towards the cliff side of the base.

His options? It seemed he was going to deal with this with the junker duo and the new recruit, music lover. That, paired with himself and Angela, seemed like it could work if they played their cards right. He calls out to Hog, only to realize him and Junkrat don’t have earpieces in. Of course. Perfect. 

“Hey, Angie-“

“Don’t say it.”

“Y’er not gonna like this.” And he was right, she wouldn’t like what he was going to do. It was how they worked: he was quick and absolutely reckless, she made up for it by fixing everything he always ended up breaking in the process.

He’s always been glad for his flashbangs. Gotten him out of quite the situation- or two, or a hundred- in his life. He trusts them now, swinging them quickly from his pocket to freeze up the omnic’s leg mechanics momentarily while he snags a hold, landing on its foot just as it starts to move again, swinging wildly. This is stupid.

This is simply what McCree does.

When the bot swings a half circle, and he catches a glimpse of the hook inevitably moving in to save his dumb ass, he grabs it and does his best to keep it there, quickly pushing it around one of the poles that holds up the omnic. He hopes for the best. Leaps off.

He hits the ground just well enough that he can still roll without popping anything important, and turns in time to see Roadhog yank, and the whole bot go down.

Jesse may do some stupid things in his life, but they’re for some smart reasons.

Doesn’t mean things are over yet, though, which he’s reminded of as Lucio breezes past him to try and find a weak point before the bot will inevitably be up again. He puts the adrenaline rush past himself enough to start moving in for the same reason. He may not have the most force, but a bullet in the right cluster of wires can do a whole lot, and he has to be quick about it.

He’d like to say that his last conscious thoughts before being blown up by bombs he hadn’t noticed were comical, or even worthwhile.

All he actually thinks when he realizes it’s too late to get back like he’s being told to is: I wonder how long it took to paint those skulls on?

 

 

The first time he remembers waking up in Mercy’s little clinic, it’s screaming that greets him. No one has the heart later to tell him it was his own.  

His vision is dim, and even when it begins to return to him it’s blurry. His hand moves to grab at the noise to his left, or so he thinks, only to realize his prosthetic's been taken off and that it hurts, terribly, to move the stump there. The realization only causes panic, and panic only causes more flailing, more pain. He feels a bit of pressure in his neck, only hears a soft murmur of his name before he’s out cold again

 

 

The second time is calmer. To be fair, he wakes up groggy, a bit numb. Actually, a lot numb. He’s not even willing to hazard a guess at how long he’s been out, but there’s a gentle hand on his left shoulder. Thin fingers, soft skin. He knows it enough.

“Hey, Angie-“ The hand stills, and he finally realizes she’d been rubbing her thumb over his skin. It’s a pleasant thought.

“You’re up.” He manages a nod, turns over to look at her with a lazy bit of a smile. She looks a right mess, in a way, hair falling in her face and eyes looking like she hasn’t slept since last he saw her. She’s a lovely lady, really. He considers her a good friend, gorgeous woman, wonderful teammate. She shows off a side that hates him, but there’s enough care underneath that he knows she’d call him a friend too.

He’s distracted enough that he doesn’t speak for just a tad too long, so she continues. “Any pain? Nothing considerable?”

He shakes his head before thinking, because, is he actually in pain right now? He doesn’t think so. No, no, he’s rather numb. Can’t even tell if the room’s real warm or if he’s getting a chill. “…no. Nah, no pain, Ange.” He’s still smiling, he realizes, and he doesn’t really make an effort to stop. Maybe he’s been shot up one or two too many times, but he’s feeling pretty good, if not drowsy.

“Good, good.” Her hand moves to his hair, and he’s feeling even better. He refocuses a bit on her, notices she’s gone back to reading. “You need your rest, Jesse.”

“Can you-“

“No, I’m not playing your music for you. Sleep.” Her smile is gentle, and he can understand that. He does, though, drifting off much better this time, a lot calmer.

The last time he wakes up in her clinic, he can feel himself finally. Well, most of himself. As he comes to full awareness, he hears the telltale sounds of Roadhog (that mask really makes his breathing obviously identifying) in the room. He turns to his left, hoping Angela’s still there. She isn’t, not in her chair at least.

A noise forms in his throat, and while he’s definitely not scared of his large teammate, he doesn’t quite want to be alone with him right now: they don’t know each other well enough. He needs a friend in this situation, someone to tell him what’s happened since he’s been out.

“Over here, Jesse. I’m still here.” That’s a relief, and he stretches out best he can with his neck before turning it to the right. Angela’s still here, standing this time, having just closed the cupboards. He hears the door shut, and his eyes focus a bit further down the room to see Roadhog sitting in a chair in the corner, and he’s rather certain there had been someone else there just a moment prior. He ignores the thought for something more pressing.

“Ey, uh, Ange? No pain, but uh- can’t really feel much of my leg.” She tenses, refuses to meet his eye as she tries to think of an answer. That’s isn’t at all reassuring. He’s quickly noticing that she’s tucked him in in the cot in a way that now seems suffocating, not much wiggle room. “…Ange. What’s up with my leg.”

She swallows, tries to put on a face. “Jesse, I…”

“Angela, I want to know about-“His voice catches in his throat, and he starts to try and push himself up, to see what’s going on. “I wanna know why I can’t-“ He doesn’t know what he wants, really, but not the mix of fear and pity running across his face, he doesn’t want the way Roadhog’ starting to stand as though he’ll have to hold Jesse down.

He doesn’t want to rip off the covers and discover the fresh stump right below the knee, flushed red and bandaged up to keep it clear of infection.

We can’t all get what we want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so late, I went to Anime Expo last week, and then this week has been pokemon go and lil bit of post con depression+my best friend is out and I normally write best when talking to them,,,luckily the next chapter is all planned out and already has been started so it will be out a lot quicker!

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize now for all of this, good luck reading  
> EDIT: Holy shit apparently I marked this as complete with one chapter? God no this is multichapter garbage  
> EDIT 2: Just set this to Explicit, since it looks like some things might be at a point, although I'll ensure to warn before explicit chapters


End file.
